Iraq is a success, no thanks to Obama

Yesterday, Iraqis flocked to the polls to democratically elect a new parliament. Turnout was high at the more than 50,000 voting booths, with some voters waiting in line for hours to exercise their freedom. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis risked their lives to serve as poll workers. There were a few attacks as was to expected, but for the most part the election went incredibly smoothly. Iraq, after decades of rule by brutal tyrants, has finally embraced democracy.

No thanks to Barack Obama.

The president gave a brief statement today in which he congratulated Iraqis on their "courage." It's a shame Obama didn't have that same courage three years ago. The only reason Iraq is a peaceful democratic haven today is President Bush's surge of more than 20,000 troops in 2007. Obama opposed that surge and spent most of the Democratic political primary railing against it.

From a CBS News article in January 2007:

Another probable presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), said rather than increasing troops, the governemnt should be bringing them home in a phased withdrawal.

"Senator McCain and the president seem to believe that only a military solution can accomplish our goals there," he said. "And every objective observer that I've talked to believes that in fact what we have is a political problem between Shia and Sunni, and it's important for us to get that political track moving. That was absent from the president's speech."

Obama said Congress needs to find options to constrain the president, but also needs to make sure that the troops have all the supplies and equipment they needs. He said he wasn't ready to support the resolution proposed by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) to cut funding for the war.

"I personally think that, if there are ways that we can constrain and condition what the president is doing so that, four to six months from now, we are beginning a phased withdrawal while making sure that the troops on the ground have the equipment that they need to succeed, then that is going to be the area that I'm most interested in supporting," he said.

And from a New York Times article in August 2007:

“No matter how brilliantly and bravely our troops and their commanders perform — and they have performed brilliantly and bravely — they cannot and should not bear the responsibility of resolving grievances at the heart of Iraq’s civil war,” Mr. Obama said. “No military surge, no matter how brilliantly performed, can succeed without political reconciliation and a surge of diplomacy in Iraq and the region.”

And then from the AP:

"Let me be clear: There is no military solution in Iraq and there never was," Obama said in excerpts of the speech provided to The Associated Press.

"The best way to protect our security and to pressure Iraq's leaders to resolve their civil war is to immediately begin to remove our combat troops. Not in six months or one year - now," the Illinois senator said."

As we now know, Obama was spectacularly wrong. The only solution in Iraq was the military solution and its effects have been dramatic. Attacks of any sort in Iraq have plummeted to less than twenty per day. You now have a greater chance of being injured in Southeast Washington, DC than in Baghdad. Joe Biden has said that he thinks Iraq will be one of the Obama Administration's greatest successes. But the tranquility there was only possible by doing the exact opposite of everything Obama wanted.